Resident urges county to work with BLM for improved public access, parking and vault toilet at Yakima RV Park site

Pat Kelleher, a resident of Wilson Creek Road, urged the Kittitas County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday to pursue public access improvements at the Yakima RV Park by partnering with the Bureau of Land Management and using an existing access easement. Kelleher requested county support for basic amenities and security to make the site usable for families and recreation.

Kelleher said the BLM easement behind the RV park includes a large grass area that could be used for parking and that using that access would allow visitors to travel either north along the river or south without immediately encountering a stream that requires fording. "If the county was to provide funding for the vault toilet," Kelleher said, "also a remote rate deal by having that fee gathering thing is not to gather money, but to get a higher quality of customer down there. And then you could put security on the barn." He also suggested the county could use previously appropriated REITU recreation funding to help pay for the improvements.

Kelleher asked the board to consider negotiating with the BLM to allow public parking on BLM land adjacent to the RV park, and to provide a vault toilet as the central facility to enable safer and higher-quality public access. The written comment Kelleher submitted was accepted into the record.